From 2008 – but new to Wow Cool – is Microsoft’s Zune Arts sole publishing project: The Lost Ones. We received a stack of these direct from author Steve (30 Days of Night) Niles, who was nice enough to sign them for us. This 80-page full color graphic novel is surely one of the stranger entries in any of the contributors bibliographies. On board for the cover art and the final quarter of the story is Gary Panter. Also contributing are Morning Breath, Dr. Revolt and Kime Buzzelli.
In other shop news: The WowCool.com server has been upgraded. We are all kinds of faster and smoother now. The shopping cart software has been upgraded to the most recent version. Thousands of changes, adjustments and additions have been made to the product listings. Best news of all – especially for our non-US customers – the shipping calculations have been massively improved, accommodating the most recent overhaul by the USPS of their shipping rates and regulations. Rates for everyone will now (in most cases) appear from the cheapest to the more expensive options. As always, we recommend Priority Flat Rate as the most reliable – and in many cases, most affordable – option. Thanks for shopping with us. Wow Cool, global leaders in the freaky and the messed up.
Ted May is all done with the fourth issue of his Injury Comics series. The catch is, he’s without a publisher at the moment. The book’s all done – featuring contributions from Jeff Wilson and Mike Reddy – they just need to be printed. And, yup, Ted needs your help to do that.
Dropping onto shelves later this month: Simon Gane illustrates writer Brian Wood’s tale of lost Viking history. Foot soldier Mads gives a grunt’s-eye view of the famous Siege of Paris where hundreds defended against thousands, and political maneuvering was as important as the clash of the shield wall. Even while they fight off the invading horde, Mads and company still have to make it through the brutal winter to survive. Collects Northlanders 37-39 “The Siege of Paris” + #40 “The Hunt” – illustrated by Matt Woodson, and #41 “Thor’s Daughter”, illustrated by Marian Churchland. Also, as mentioned recently, Simon will be the regular artist on the new Godzilla series starting in May.
Zack Soto, the mastermind behind Press Gang partner Study Group, was nice enough to flow us a small stack of stickers and postcards recently (as seen in the impossibly bad phone photo above). Anyone who orders Study Group 12 #4 or Study Group Magazine #1 or any books by Zack Soto will be getting some bonus goodies (while supplies last).
Hello. Thanks to anyone who somehow got here because they saw this ad. It is currently running on certain popular comics sites and a particular search engine. It will also be appearing a bit bigger in full color in Smoke Signal #12. A big thanks to the awesome Andy Ristaino for providing the art. Feel free to use and share. We’ll be putting all sorts of shameless self promo banners, buttons and bobs up in the near future that we will be likewise be urging you to utilize. Note the clever use of the Thurston Moore YR Vs. the LolCats UR. Which side are you on?
Brand new publisher Hic & Hoc announce a call for submissions to their non-fiction comics anthology of Unsolved Mysteries. They also have books coming soon from Neil Fitzpatrick, Lauren Barnett, Pat Aulisio, Alabaster, Bernie McGovern, Philippa Rice, Dina Kelberman and Emi Gennis.
“I HAVE TRAVELED HERE FROM THE YEAR 1984 TO MAKE COMICS FOR YOU ALL. It was a long trip and I started it as a baby. I think I’ve always been drawing and writing little stories going as far back as I can remember; my first real effort though was a goofy autobiographical web comic I started at the end of high school, followed by my first zine a few years later. That early stuff was pretty bad though, I think I had to get out and go through some shit and learn a lot more about life before I started making comics I was satisfied with. I started Sacred Heart about two years ago and in that time have started self-publishing Cyanide Milkshake and some other minis as well.” – get acquainted with Liz and her mad comics in this interview by Janelle Blarg on Maximum RockNRoll. Take the full plunge and pick up her comics from Wow Cool.
Guest post by James Arsenault, done as a present to his sister. The pattern will become clear. Partly inspired by a little too much Schoolhouse Rock, in particular the audio CD “Math Rock”, which we are pretty sure has no connection to certain bands from a decade or so ago, largely from the fine state of Kentucky.
The popular Godzilla comics series from IDW is getting a relaunch in May and Simon Gane will be the regular artist. Simon had previously illustrated Godzilla Legends #2 starring Rodan for the company, but this will be his first full-on go at the Big G. Full solicitation text follows.
Godzilla #1
Duane Swierczynski (w) • Simon Gane (a) • Art Adams, Tony Harris (c)
Godzilla is back… in an all-new ongoing series! Duane Swierczynski and Simon Gane launch this ultimate action-movie blockbuster, ushering in a new era of monster battles. Ex-special forces tough-guy Boxer is a man with a grudge and vows to end the terror of Godzilla, no matter what. He assembles a top notch team to take down monster-sized threats… at $7 billion a bounty. What starts as a vendetta could become a lucrative business for Boxer… if he can live past day one!
FC • 32 pages • $3.99
*Variant Covers:
Ryan Kelly movie-tribute cover!
Art Adams gatefold cover!
Bullet Points:
¥ The new ongoing Godzilla series STARTS HERE!
¥ Bigger, badder and more radioactive… this is the ultimate Godzilla tale!
¥ Every issue contains a random Art Adams monster trading card! 9 different cards available, collect the whole set! Also, look for randomly inserted unique sketch cards from Matt Frank!
We’re dancing on the desks at Wow Cool HQ – which we do normally – but we are dancing extra vigorously at the news that Rob Clough selected Sam Henderson’s Free Ice Cream for the coveted #18 position in his Top 30 Minicomics of 2011 review in The Comics Journal. Sam sent us the above illustration, mainly because he could, partly because we asked, but most importantly because this post would be pretty bare without it. At least it would be not very colorful if we just ran the cover art.
Taken from this slightly off-kilter analysis of Joe Kubert in the context of mid-60s superhero comics.
That piece also gives us this very charming sequence:
I named the only cat I ever had Emmett, after Emmett Grogan of the Diggers.
Hey Silicon Valley folks! Get yr butts down to the SLG Art Boutiki at 577 S. Market St. in San Jose tonight – Wednesday February 15 – from 6 until 9pm for the NerdMart “Geek Swap Meet”. Wow Cool will be there in the form of Marc, with a big Frank Santoro-style bargain box of strange comics as well as a few Wow Cool goodies, including a big stack of Sam Henderson’s Free Ice Cream.
Word has it that our old pals Prank Records (They put out one of the early Hail Mary 7″ records) will be on hand as will be Jim “Blockhead” Pitts – selling old underground comix, Movies, toys, steampunk schwag and more. So, come and check out what people are getting rid of, what people value beyond all other things, and what one person’s crap becomes another person’s cool.
SLG Art Boutiki & Gallery, 577 S. Market Street, San Jose, CA 95113 | View Map
One of my favorite jokes on the original Muppet Show series is a throw-away comment by one of the Statler and Waldorf duo about how the only papers he reads are the New York Times and the Manchester Guardian. It works on several levels, and seems to have been likely constructed thus. On the surface it’s the throwaway comment that indicates he has no clue what, exactly, the other has said. The content of the comment is inclusive with regards to the two primary english speaking audiences of the show – American and British (note: the show was produced in the UK, and the episodes broadcast there had a greater length, typically including a muppet version of an English music hall standard that was omitted in the US version); and, possibly most humorously, the Guardian had dropped ‘Manchester’ from it’s masthead many years earlier – in 1959 – thus playing on the aged dottiness of the character. I only bring this up, because, in my experience, the talented and well traveled cartoonist and musician Jeffrey Lewis has only ever received much press attention from the Guardian and, now, The New York Times. Good work if you can get it, as they say. Create hopelessly obscure personal work, get all but ignored by the underground but routinely receive notice(s) from the best of the mainstream press. So, in keeping with this (perceived) tradition, a nearly decade-old song of Jeffrey’s is given full play by the artist himself in both text and comic form in the New York Times. The NYT itself having recently come under some scrutiny for cartoonist hiring tactics. Although not any kind of clinician, physician, pediatrician, psycheotrician myself, this sounds more like good old-fashioned insomnia to me and not a proper anxiety attack being described in the song. As mentioned somewhere in there, Jeffrey also does the music for Jon Ronson’s series Esc and Ctrl, which is well worth a view anyways.
Bad Machinery (and Scary Go Round, before it) has been my very favorite web comic for several years now. As you may have heard, the gravy days of ridiculous t-shirt sales income and Super Bowl level sponsorships are a thing of the past in web comics land. Now these poor bastards are lucky to get a lint-covered marmite sandwich in the soup line. To compensate for this inadequacy of effort vs. compensation, the great John Allison has put forward a subscription package that guarantees you exactly what you get. And he deserves it!
For nearly ten years, I’ve supported myself producing comics by making merchandise that hopefully, people will buy. All the while, I try to do my best work, writing stories and illustrating them, for free. It makes very little sense.
My comics on this site will always be free to read. But if you want to directly fund the stories you enjoy, please consider signing up for a Scary Go Round subscription. Once a year, you’ll be a bona fide patron of the arts. There are no other benefits. £2 a year is less than a penny per comic.
STANDARD – £2 / $3 every year – receive nothing*
BRONZE – £10 / $10 every year – receive nothing*
SILVER – £25 / $25 every year – receive nothing*
GOLD – £50 / $50 every year – receive nothing*
PLATINUM – £100 / $100 every year – receive nothing*
*but my gratitude
It’s a square deal. You’re free to cancel via your Paypal account at any time – use this link to access your subscriptions. If I decide to abandon webcomics, you will be informed in advance. After 13+ years without missing a scheduled update, you’re probably pretty safe.
I love making comics, and want to find a better way to keep doing it the same way I always have – if that makes sense! If I can fund my work this way, I will be able to work without worry. Thanks for taking the time to read.
Little Heart is a comic anthology created to show support for marriage equality, produced in partnership with 2D Cloud & [MN]Love and YOU. The comics included in the volume cover a variety of material, from auto-bio, science fiction, intimate vignettes, romantic incidentals; work created to show that love strikes all walks of life.
This project was spawned by the very urgent need to fight the 2012 referendum that seeks to instill discrimination and hate in the Minnesota state constitution. Since Little Heart’s inception, the project has grown. The reason for the growth is that the issue itself is bigger than Minnesota. Which is why we have enlisted artists across the US and Canada.
Artists included in the book are as follows:
Tuesday Bassen, Emma Reynolds, Tim Sievert, Michael DeForge, Alex Fukui, Ellen Redshaw, Anna Bongiovanni, Hannah Blumenreich, Megan Tulius, Hedwig Vinson + Rachel Kowarski, Milkyboots, Luke Holden, Ed Choy + Sam Sharpe, Tammy Ray, Noah Van Sciver, Sally Madden, Jeremy Sorese, Emily Carroll + Kate Craig, Sean Lynch, Joseph Remnant, MariNaomi, Maurice Vellekoop, Zak Sally; with Christopher Butcher handling the introduction/foreword.
Coming in at 160+ pages, perfect bound, 5” x 6”, featuring color as well as black and white — this book is going to be a looker. It’s also going to be a little spendy to produce. The production costs are about 4k to pay the artists and another 4.5k for the actual printing of the book. We are aiming to print 1000 copies — should we exceed our goal, extra funds will go towards increasing the print run, higher production values, and paying the artists a higher rate.
Suspect Device 2 on Kickstarter
Suspect Device #1 was released in August 2011, a 35 page book in black and white with one very good idea; making new comics by taking old panels out of context and drawing a new improvised context around them, a new comic from the old. The 2nd issue adds a couple new wrinkles to the game and brings in over 60 artists, including, Noah Van Sciver, Sam Henderson, Chuck Forsman, Johnny Ryan, Kevin Scalzo, KC Green, Brian Ralph, Lizz Hickey, Anne Emond, Brendan Lynch, Box Brown, Heather Benjamin, Noah Lyon of Retard Riot, Pat Ausilio, Keenan Keller, Domitille Collardey and Janelle Hessig.
When this fine volume emerges it will surely show up in the Wow Cool shop. We still have a few copies of Suspect Device #1 available.
Andy Ristaino time, that is. Andy is, of course an artist on Adventure Time, but he has also produced many fine comics. Wow Cool has just this very day acquired fresh stock of his self-published comics The Tunnel and Corporation Earth Needs Our Help! as well as the full color collection of drawings Night of the Living Vidiots. New to the selection, as seen above is “One hundred and forty people from the future, twelve cavemen, one old-timey muscle man, nine beach bums, five pirates, a dog, and a monster”, which is pretty much what it sounds like.
Andy was just recently profiled by the LA Zine Fest as part of their meet your local zinester series. There’s a seemingly endless number of awesome events (many of them going on tonight) in the buildup to the Zine Fest itself next Sunday, February 19. Get all the deets on the LA Zine Fest blog.
Object 5 – Works by Killian Eng
The first monograph of illustration and graphic design work by Swedish artist, Kilian Eng. The book features over 60 full color pieces created over the last three years. Kilian’s images present alternate worlds where the environment plays a great role.
Violence Valley by Jesse McManus
A bright, dumb, gap-toothed lad goes rambling out-doors, inevitably finding himself within the deepest bowels of a living, breathing dog. His passage out the other end involves homespun dental work, a transforming pan-flute and the kind of reverse infestation which will make anyone look twice before they flush.
We also have the second and third editions of Floating World’s excellent Diamond Comics now in stock in the shop. Few copies remaining, so go get yours now!
We just got a short stack of the January & February issues of the excellent tabloid Mother’s News. They’ll be going out FREE with all orders from WowCool.com that are sent by Priority or Media Mail (while supplies last). Features comic strips by C.F., Brian Chippendale, Michael DeForge, Mickey Z and much more. Wow Cool is proud to be a Mother’s News advertiser and a supporter of this fine publication. Catch the glow.
Print
– March 20, 2012
